if i were to take a journey by train, suitcase in hand, and stop at station after destination after station, i would struggle with the burden of this suitcase, heavy and burdensome with my weights. i would stop at one station, a bone in my throat, asphyxiated, my feverish heart clamoring for someone to help with my suitcase, heavy and burdensome with my weights. and this with the mind of not knowing, really, if this someone will help if i ask, or if he will want something in return if he helps me. and this with the mind of not knowing, really, what my next destination will be, or why i am going there.
i have traveled from mons to bruxelles to liège to köln, station after destination after station that smells of burned rubber and recycled human breath, against my desire, wearing my feelings like a string of scalpels around my neck, and seeing in their eyes her love is away for six months and she is dying inside, but saying it must be - this journey must be if i will find the chips missing from the mosaic. perhaps in the embrace of steam to my face as i sip an espresso in a sidewalk café. perhaps in my uneven walk up an uneven hill while, in the town below, the church bells toll for the dead. perhaps in a knowing bite on my thumb as i watch a child smile at her mother while the smiling is still innocent. yet i find myself stuck in köln on a rainy monday in this crowded station of glass and steel and peculiar geometry while the active crowds walk past me with static faces, their entropic intolerance for one another like expensive perfume, their waxy eyes branding disorder upon my screeching flesh. and i await the next train to take me to the next station, but with a primordial resistance, perhaps because i do not truly wish to find these chips missing from the mosaic.
so i remain upon a bench of glass and steel etched with graffito after graffito by those seeking some form of commemoration - ich vermisse dich 13.05.07 and du bist mein engel. i sit with comatose body but zealous mind on this monday in köln, i too missing my angel, with the glacial rain shooting bullets onto the stone platform, slapping my face and drenching the suitcase that sits beside me, heavy and burdensome with my weights, while i allow train after train after train to pass me, though i have a calculated awareness that i cannot sit in this station forever pretending that i await the next train.
34 comments:
Wonder what Robinson Crusoe would remark about that!!....
where ever you go there will always be that one person you can't ignore...You!
You, me , others will pass with someone sometime somewhere in the name of 'once upon a time...and forever after etc'...,
or just apathically watch, regimented crowd rush past, preoccupied about daily living, maybe even looking for displaced reference points of their lives, or maybe just swirling in disneyland attractions or playing with the latest spiritual gadgets.
But if you can watch in the drenching rain, how it kisses you, washing away the disagreable traces...then, you have'nt missed your train!
Pitter, patter, pitter, patter.....has the lyrics for a love song! ;-)
That is really something, how you describe sitting in the station like that, almost forever.
Wow Nevine.
Boy you can write.
Love Renee xoxo
This was fantastic, so many great lines. I especially love,
"wearing my feelings like a string of scalpels around my neck" excellent!
much love
once again, you have done it....drawn me in, read my soul as if you have lived it..the never ending wait....
wonderfuly done.
There is a real tangible quality to your writing - exquisite. I like your images too, good choices.
Craftsman - I think Crusoe would rather like train stations with all their human fascination. And yes, I can't seem to ignore myself, and that's really the problem. But I did watch in the rain, and my pain stayed with me. But then, train station after train station, and rainstorm after rainstorm, my pain became a tiny little button that I kept tucked inside my heart. I didn't want to let go of all of it. I'm greedy, even with pain. It's heartening to read your comments, Craftsman, because they come from the heart.
Secretia - And it felt like forever, too!
Renee - You're a gem. :)
Stacey - That line was really quite how it all felt. Thank you much.
Steven - I actually did live this. I know I always write fiction, but every once in a while I go out on a limb and give a little of myself. This is a wee bit, although it feels like a whole lot to me.
Sharon - I so love the word "exquisite". It makes my day that you feel my writing.
again, nevine - your words leave me speechless - true beauty - all of them! and i'm totally with stacey on the line "wearing my feelings like a string of scapels around my neck"! can't even tell you!!!! great!
i felt the wait with your words.
I like the potent image of dragging that suitcase around.
I feel the loneliness and inner burden that is equivalent to the weight bearing suitcase. You certainly have a way of describing things, your own unique style. I may have said this to you before but it's certainly true. The picture goes perfect with the solemnity of this. You scribe the right words to set the mood and atmosphere.
That was truly wondeful...I loved it. Well done Nevine. :)
That collage of chameleon faces is so striking. And in your writing, you let us see the fractures and schisms that make up the whole of a life well journeyed.
This line really struck me:
wearing my feelings like a string of scalpels around my neck
You carve such rare and magnificent images in your work, Nevine. I feel a great rapport with your inner world, and in this piece, with both the static weight and the inner currents of turmoil.
I think this station is just a resting point before the search continues.
Gypsywoman - Thank you so much for your always encouraging comments. You know both my heart and my mind.
Shadow - And it was a long wait...
Jason - The image is strong, and the arms were strong, but the heart was weak.
Life/She Poet - It was a lonely place to be, and "solemnity" is a lovely word to describe it. Thank you, She Poet.
Akasha - I appreciate that a lot, Queen of the Darkside!
Sarah - You seem to always understand what I write about, and your rapport with my inner world is also one I feel with yours. I suppose it wouldn't be off to say we think and feel with similar psyches, not necessarily having experienced similar lives, but having internalized what we have experienced using similar mental and emotional processes. I'm humbled by your comment, Sarah.
i really love how you set this in rhythm - the repitition of words and phrases echoing the pulse of train wheels, the hum of rain, and thoughts pacing in circles - it's amazingly effective - the continuity of the baggage tied to restlessness of movement is awesome.
there are so many standouts in this it's almost dangerous to try to choose, but "their entropic intolerance for one another like expensive perfume" leapt out at me as both darkly funny and ruthlessly observant.
i also think it's brilliant that you begin "if i were to take a journey by train", and end with "pretending that i await the next train" -looping it back into itself. wow.
wearing my feelings like a string of scalpels around my neck... powerful! the confusion and emotional baggage, dragging the burdensome suitcase around, all words that i can identify with. great post, nevine!
Loads of thoughts crossing my mind. More pertinently that recycled human breath. How many times we inhale it, how many times we exhale it?
A very powerful piece about disorientation, dislocation and determination. Your decision not to find the missing chips from the mosaic was wonderfully described.
Many thanks for such a beautiful post.
Greetings from London.
hi Nevine !!
it was great to have discovered your blog !!!
see you !!!
I have strained my eyes and must be off the computer for a time .. old age .. ;) but reading this was worth it, as I truly enjoyed reading this. Have a nice week Nevine, I am going to rest my eyes and my mind!
You are so good at telling your feelings to your reader.. Lovely read..
Joaquin - I'm very intrigued by your perspective. You hear a rhythm, and the sound of trains. You are willing to go underneath the surface to read what is hidden from the obvious. I anticipate your comments because they unwrap my imagination further. Your visits here are truly welcome, and always appreciated. "Thank you" doesn't quite suffice.
DreamDancer - Yes, that heavy baggage is something we all have to experience, but always on different levels and for different reasons. I know you know where I'm coming from, here.
Cuban - And as we inhale and exhale one another's breath, how palpably do we really connect? Some of the missing chips were found, later. But I dare say I abandoned the search for some of the others, while the search for a small remainder of chips will remain, and I will only find a fraction of them, yet. Now you're bringing it all back to me... What to do with you, Cuban? :-)
Caio - Welcome to my place! I look forward to seeing you, so don't be a stranger.
Amias - I wish you a blissful rest and meaningful dreams. Enjoy!
Turquoise - These feelings came from the heart. Thank you for sharing them.
Nevine, each time I have come to your page I end up floored by the depth, the profound depth of feeling, your prose that reads more like poetry, one cannot help but want to come running to help you with that suitcase, all of here in the blogosphere, and ask nothing in return, only satisfied and smiling to see your burden lighter, to see your back les bowed, to help you take the scalpels away from your lovely neck... to soften the sound of church bells tolling for the dead, and tomorrow may they toll for joy instead...
And I thank you deeply for your message at my place today.
May I leave you with a piece of music ? which for some reason your beautiful writing made me think of just now...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLv-ITJEnsE
Ah, typos, typos... type too fast sometimes... should read :
"all of us here..."
"your back less bowed..."
(sorry)
Owen - You've brought tears to my eyes, the good kind of tears. And it was my pleasure to comment about your haunting photos. As for that song, which I enjoyed enormously, well I'm sure you don't know but I do love Satriani's "The Forgotten" - it's a dreamlike piece of instrumentation. And those typos? They're the quirky slips of tremblingly honest fingers. I really appreciate your comment, Owen. :-)
Hello, Nevine! To give you some slightly different feedback on this piece, each day after a near-death experience, my mind was held in the state you convey. Every step I took that day and the following night were the steps you took in this fine piece of writing. The world felt different, yet the same, there still as always but I felt as disconnected as you.
An industrial eplosion sent a sharp piece of metal past my head, just a finger's width away as it whistled past my life and continued on through a cinder-block wall. For a day and a night the world shifted, but as I slept someone put it right again.
As I read this, I re-appreciated both my interconnectedness and my mortality. What a wonderful thing for you to accomplish!
Rick - Different feedback, indeed! I do know that feeling when something very dangerous almost happens to us, though. I've experienced a wide-open-mouth reaction at such experiences, and the disconnectedness you describe, the only thoughts going through my head being wonder over the complexities of a mere split-second. But the fact that you somehow connected that extremely dangerous experience you had (near-death, as you called it) with my journey truly humbles me, even as I understand the similarity in the emotions we experienced. Yes, there is a similarity that allows for a comparison - you almost physically died, and I felt like I really was dying, though not physically. But then the concept of death is so fluid, don't you find?
Rick, I really want to thank you for sharing this story. You've truly given me fresh eyes and a fresh mind for examining my own writing. It's always appreciated when a comment does that for me, because it allows me to see a new subtlety or nuance in my writing that triggered something different in another's mind. I really can't thank you enough.
easy to say: 'dump the suitcase of weights' and walk away, forever free... but there are so many other 'ties that bind'
love your take on it, though...
Wolf - Yes, easy to say but as you said, the "ties that bind" are too many and too precious. Thank you! :-)
hi nevine - just coming over for my daily intake of all that's beautifully moving and inspiring! have a glorious day!
You too, Gypsywoman. And thank you! Oh, and... my new piece is coming soon... :)
Nevine,
Thought provoking post. Wonderfully written from the heart....and soul.
Thank you, Martin. And thank you also for your visit. Don't be shy to come back!
That is really something, how you describe sitting in the station like that, almost forever.
Work from home India
Thank you, Prashant.
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